How One Former American Idol Hopeful Is Drawing Millennials to Church

Madaline Donnelly



Kurtis Parks sits outside of Le Pain Quotidien in SE Washington, DC. (Photo: Madaline Donnelly/The Daily Signal)

It’s a bright, warm morning in late April, and Kurtis Parks is full of ideas.

The 33-year-old is so positively positive that it’s neither surprising nor disarming when his voice springs from spoken word into song and back again. He exudes happy energy. Everything from his near-full sleeves of tattoos to his 5 o’clock shadow to his hipster-meets-preppy wardrobe quietly affirms a comfortable confidence.

Leave a Little Room for the Holy Spirit in Your Life

Plans, programs, and strategies are all great. But we need to leave room for more |

Ed Stetzer

Michal Bielecki / Flickr

This article originally appeared in Outreach Magazine. Be sure to check them out and subscribe here.

If you grew up Catholic (like I did) you probably heard the phrase, “Leave a little room for the Holy Spirit.”

LSD, Revolution, Buddhism, Then Jesus

The conversion of an original Jesus freak.

 

James Stuart Bell

 

 

 

Image: Brian MacDonald

Some of my friends—those of us who used to say things like, “Don’t trust anyone over 30”—now joke with each other that if you remember the 1960s, you weren’t there. Our memory gaps from the countercultural era have nothing to do with our encroaching senility.

As a college student, did I really run into a friend at a Grateful Dead concert, where, already high on pot and hashish, we did a line of cocaine for good measure? Did we really wear tie-dyed bandanas and our hair halfway down our backs as we wandered through a haze of incense and strobe lights set to the opening riffs of “Purple Haze”? Did we really take LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and other hallucinogenic drugs to explore the outer frontiers of the cosmos, with its “deep” insights? Insights that produced deep responses like, “Far out, man”?

The Problem with Quiet Times

Amy Julia Becker

As a mother of three small children, when I stopped having disciplined set apart time with God, my faith grew.


Cindee Snider Re/flickr

When I was in high school, I learned about this practice of many evangelical Christians called quiet times. Quiet times didn’t only involve an absence of distracting noise, but also a Bible and a journal and maybe a book about something spiritual. I read through the New Testament during my quiet times one summer. I wrote down my prayers and filled a bookshelf with those pleas and confessions in one spiral bound notebook after another. I learned a lot about God, I soaked in a lot of Scripture, and I grew as a Christian.

DR. AKANBI IN UK TO CELEBRATE SOUTHAMPTON’S ANNIVERSARY

By Ola Jones

“…But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundred fold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold.” – Matthew13:4-8

 

Six years ago the seed was planted; when it was sown, it fell on a good ground and nurtured with heavenly grace. Little wonder it has been germinating with very strong roots deep in the soil. The fruits at every season have become something of pride; thanks to the awesome hands of God which have made it an outstanding plant.

 

It is outstanding because when the farmer sowed, it did not fall by the way side for the fowls to devour and neither did it fall upon a stony place where it could not have enough earth to survive.

Dr. James Akanbi 

 

This is how the Southampton branch of the God’s Mercy Revival Ministries (GOMERM) in the United Kingdom which celebrates its anniversary tomorrow, April 28, 2013 with a powerful ministration by the General Overseer and a highly respected man of God, Dr James Oluwole Akanbi has been growing from glory to glory.

 

With the grace given from the throne of the Most High God, Pastors Oluseyi and Christiana Asiyanbi, the shepherds in charge of the Southampton flock in January 2006 began a mini fellowship in their flat with one other adult and two children. The duo with the support of Dr Akanbi worked hard that it did not take long before the first seed of GOMERM in the United Kingdom was let into the earth. Four months after this spiritual conception, precisely April 23, 2006, the seed nurtured by Seyi and Christiana sprouted out from the earth and a new foliage was officially inaugurated by Dr Akanbi.

Pastors Oluseyi and Christiana Asiyanbi

 

Today the branch has moved from power to power and Grace to Grace feeding from the spiritual strength supplied by the stem which itself enjoys enormous and powerful anointing as given unto faithful prophets of the old by God. This is clearly evident by the several testimonies emerging from miracles, healings and deliverances in Jesus Name.

 

Buttressing this, Bro Oscar a member of the church whose life took a new turn after an unpleasant experience once said in his testimony of the enormous blessings he has enjoyed since he became a Gomermite

 

"God led me to this Ministry and He has transformed my life ever since. For the short time I have been with the church, my dreams have come to pass; my life has turned around for the better as a result of many miracles. I have enjoyed love and care form other members, which is reflected in their own respective lives," he said with joy.

 

Also recounting her experience, Sister Alice said "The past few years in the church have really been wonderful.” Adding that, “Joining the church, I was initially felt quite anxious, but everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I can testify to my growth in the LORD. I am more confident in witnessing to people and sharing the good news of the gospel. I give God all the praise, AMEN"

 

Quite interesting is the testimony of the UK based Egbe family who saw the kindness of God to the in GOMERM as an undeserved generosity

 

While appreciating the huge grace from God, Mr. Egbe said “By God’s grace, my wife and I celebrated our 2nd year anniversary, and in the last 2 years, God has blessed us so much. We have had a baby girl, born safely by God’s grace, despite man’s report. And we also would like to thank God for the generosity of the Pastors and the church family after the delivery.

 

“We would also like to thank God for our health, and our lives. My wife was experiencing bad dreams of death, and this affected her daily routine, she was uncomfortable to drive alone with our baby, and or drive on the motorway. This was concerning and we worried about her getting to and from work. We spoke to our Pastor about it and he counselled us and by God’s grace, the dreams stopped. We are giving this testimony to confirm the glory of God in our lives and the victory he has given us over death! Amen!"

 

There are numerous testimonies emerging with each passing day from Southampton and for Pastors Oluseyi and Christiana Asiyanbi, they are enough to give thanks to God for His faithfulness thus the presence of their Spiritual father, Dr. James Oluwole Akanbi and his amiable wife, Mummy G.O in UK to celebrate God with a powerful revival this weekend. Congratulations to the people in Zion.

GOMERM, MY ZION

By Ola Jones

 

The journey was that of the Israelite in the wilderness. For years, I was lost as I shepherded the rest of my family. There was no one to give direction; and ignorantly we wandered going to settlements where God does not exist. In the wilderness we were, when the light shone and we found where God lives. The domicile was where we had passed severally; it was an appointed sanctuary for us but we could not recognise it as such. We wandered with the faintest idea that so close to us was a healing home, a home for deliverance from the claws of the evil world, a home where a true relationship with God gives you salvation, a home where like for the Zionists, captivities are restored. It is the habitat of God, enveloped by the wind of miracles. The House is God’s Mercy Revival Ministry, (GOMERM). As the name depicts, in truth, His favour and mercy abound therein.

Dr. James Oluwole Akanbi, GeneralOverseer, GOMERM

There is a powerful manifestation of the presence of the Prince of Peace in this Great House of the Lord.

 

It was in the first week of July 2011, that my family visited the church to worship and from that moment a change began in our lives. The whole of the preceding week was a tough experience and one that I will never let go from my memory. We had survived the week only on ten satchets of water which we purchased with the last 35 naira we had in our home. It was a week we thought, we were due for ridicule as we were yet to renew the rent due on our 6’ x 9’ room apartment. The landlady had politely exhibited her impatience with us probably because she felt the amount (7,200 naira for half -of- a- year) should not be difficult for us to pay and so she subtly threatened fire and brimstone should we fail to settle at the turn of a new month which was the July we first visited GOMERM. To simply put it, we were dead in the water.

 

The Journey to liberation

 

In GOMERM, we met Jesus Christ through His servant Dr. James Akanbi who prayed with prophetic pronouncement that a silver lining would come to mark our cloud. And unbelievably this came to pass within few days and specifically the very day my landlady was to have confrontation with us. I was in the house that morning when a spirit ministered to me that I should call on a friend I had not seen for almost 16 years. I swiftly heeded and a call to the friend yielded the rent, and some money to feed. Not only that, he offered that I should come into the office regularly to assist him in duties while he would appreciate my effort with whatever he could give at the end of the month.

 

This awesome manifestation of God’s ability to turn things around with His infinite mercy became a propelling force in me to stay in GOMERM. I became faithful that someday, He will visit me fully as he had done to others that had in my presence testified to His kindness. My faith became stronger as the General Overseer of the Church who I prefer to call Dad, took special interest in my family. He is indeed a caring man of God. Dr. Akanbi is a man living like Jesus Christ; he readily shares the pains of others, no matter what it will take from his life. All he battles for is your salvation and inheritance of the rest of the things that His father in Heaven has promised us. With those things comes prosperity, good health, breaking of the yoke of affliction, success, etc.

 

Dr. Akanbi is an oracle of God. Several times he had spoken the mind of the Supreme Being towards man and such pronouncements never fail to come into fulfillment. He has given prophecies about nations, concerning individuals and institutions and they happened as he was sent to reveal. Last year in the month of August during a Solution Touch Service which happens every Thursday, this affable man of God prophesied  that someone in the service would be earning his income in dollars and truly when I opened my mail in the following month I saw something happening in that realm.

 

Also late last year God showed him a vision that there were some members of the church that the enemies had clipped there wings and they could no longer fly but after that revelation and prayer, the affected people would have there wings back and start flying. True to this vision, I had witnessed people sharing testimonies of making there journeys by air in the past but due to the power of demonic forces life became miserable and they could no longer fly. The prophecy also came to pass in my life this month when I had to travel miraculously by air within the country after the airspace was closed to me by enemies for several years.

 

It was during the trip that the biggest one happened. At the monthly miracle service of the for the month of January Dr. Akanbi prophesied, a new season for the church members and I could still remember the special touch of the Holy Spirit on me that morning service. Truly, it became the start of a new season for me and my family as the trip fetched me the money to hire a new apartment (Three bed rooms flat). I was taken away from Egypt where I have been suffering for years. The high point of this testimony is that my landlady gave me a notice of eviction in January against March and God intervened in His awesome way and provided a very comfortable palace for my family. God lives in GOMERM, The Ministry is my own Zion.